Page 33 of Beautiful Madness

And the fucking daywalkerswouldn’t leave me alone so I could get to Rick. They kept blocking my view,hindering my progress, getting in my way when all I needed was to reach thedetective before it was too late.

Maybe it was already too late.

I slung a daywalker out of theway just in time to see two of Rick’s attackers drop to the ground and go athim with wide mouths and long fangs, sneaking past the ones who were currentlyfighting each other for the right to eat the delicious human.

I wouldn’t reach him beforethey bit him.

I screamed, and that scream offury poured from my soul, filled with magic and twisted up with mystery, and atleast twenty of the monsters closest to me exploded into black dust.

I screamed again as I flewtoward him, and I swear that for those few seconds, I wasn’t totally in thisworld. Dark forms ran with me, carrying me along with shadowy arms, the windfrom their breaths at my back, pushing me on.

And Nicole, the guardian angel,was waiting, hunched over Rick, attempting, with her insubstantial form, tokeep the monsters off him.

Arran, the dwarf who’d given methe blade with which to trick Lucas, dove from nowhere and physically shoved thetwo daywalkers away.

My friends.

And in that moment I knew twothings.

One, the detective mattered tothe spirits of another world, and two, I did not entirely belong here. Someday,in my afterlife, I would have a whole different life. And any part of me thatmay have feared death simply…disappeared.

I didn’t fear death—not for me.I feared living without the ones I loved. “Death is just a different life,”someone whispered. Maybe it was me. But then I screamed again, and moredaywalkers died, and then I was falling to my knees beside the detective.

“This battle has drawn Lucas,”Nicole murmured. “Beware and be ready.” And then she was gone.

They all fled, even theremaining daywalkers, and I was alone.

No, not alone. Not really.

The spirits surrounded me, andRick lay with his head on my legs, still breathing. Still alive. Still human.

But I threw back my head andscreamed again, and this time it was not a killing scream. It was a wail ofagony, of loss, and of fear, because as the daywalkers disappeared, they leftbehind another scent they’d carried with them.

The scent of my alpha.

ChapterSeventeen

“He’ll be all right, Kait,” Dr.Hayes assured me. “He needs rest, better nutrition, and less stress, but that’snot only because of tonight. He doesn’t take care of himself, and I don’tbelieve he’s sleeping.”

I knew how to help him sleep.Rick didn’t like being alone with his demons. I just needed to take the time todo it. Or make the time.

I paced the little hallwayoutside the examining room as I waited for the detective to emerge. “I pickedup Jared’s scent, Ben,” I murmured. “Once the daywalkers fled and their scentwasn’t covering his, I caught it.”

He put a hand on my arm to keepme still. “The daywalkers had him?”

I didn’t like his use of theword ‘had,’ but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t been thinking myself. Obsessingover. “The ones who ambushed him—did they leave him for dead somewhere and thedaywalkers found him?” That he was trapped with the daywalkers but still livingwas unlikely. They would have bitten him. They would have killed him. “Theymight have turned him,” I whispered.

But he scoffed, and rightly so.“It’s not possible for a vampire to turn a wolf, Kaitlyn. If they got theirhands on him…” He shook his head, unable to finish.

“I saw monsters in the tunnelsbeneath Scarlett’s,” I told him. “I saw creatures that shouldn’t have existed.I fought them. It’s possible.”

“No,” he said flatly, just asthe door opened and Rick stepped out. “He would not allow himself to live insuch a condition, even if it were possible.”

But I knew Jared would neverkill himself without reaching out first. If he thought his death was best forhis pack, then yes. He would take himself out. But he’d have contacted themfirst. He’d have contactedme. He would never just end his life likethat, not even if the daywalkers had managed to turn him.

If he were alive, then he wassomehow restrained. If he were with the daywalkers, in their nest, then hewould have been put there with protection against them.

“I’m going to find out,” I saidgrimly. “Thanks, Ben.”